Prince the Dauphin fell into Passion called him Son of a Bastard and threw some of the Chessmen at his Head Upon which Prince Henry enraged took up the Chess-board and struck the Dauphin with such Fury on the Head that he laid him bleeding on the Ground and had killed him if his Brother Robert had not retained him and made him sensible how much more it concerned him to make his Escape than pursue his Revenge and thereupon they went down immediately took Horse and by the Help of their Speed or their own good Fortune got safe to Pontoise before they could be reached by the French that pursued them The King of France exasperated by this Accident and Indignity to his Son which revived an inveterate Malice or Envy he had against King William first demanded Satisfaction but at the same time prepared for Revenge both by raising an Army to invade Normandy and taking private Measures with Duke Robert to divest his Brother Henry of his Share in the Government and leave the Dominion of that Dutchy to the Duke according to his former Pretensions grounded upon his Father's Promise wherein the King of France as a Witness still pretended to be concerned The King of England seeing the War inevitable enters upon it with his usual Vigor and with incredible Celerity transporting a brave English Army invades France and takes several Towns in Poictou whilst the French took the City of Vernon by which Hostilities on both sides the first War began between England and France which seemed afterwards to have been entailed upon the Posterity and Successors of these two Princes for so many Generations to have drawn more noble Blood and been attended with more memorable Atchievements than any other National Quarrel we read of in any ancient or modern Story King William after taking of several Towns and spoiling much Country in Poictou and Xantonge returned to Rouen where by the Benignity of his own Nature and Levity of his Son 's he was the third time reconciled to Duke Robert and thereby disappointed those Hopes the King of France had conceived from his Practises with that Prince and as some write with his Brother Henry too and defeated his Pretext of assisting his Right in the Dominion of Normandy But Philip bent upon this War by other Incentives than those which appeared from the Favour of Duke Robert's Pretensions or Revenge of the Dauphin's Injury and moved both with the Jealousie of the King's Greatness and the Envy of his Glory and Felicity resolved to prosecute obstinately the Quarrel he had rashly begun and not esteeming the sudden though violent Motions of a youthful Heat between the two Princes a Ground sufficient to bear the Weight of a formal and declared War upon the News and Spight of Duke Robert's Reconciliation with his Father he sent to the King to demand Homage of him both for Normandy and England King William answered that he was ready to do him the Homage accustomed for Normandy but would do him none for England which he held only of God and his Sword The French King hereupon declared open War against him which was begun and pursued with great Heats and Animosities on both sides with equal Forces but unequal Fortune which favoured either the Justice of the King's Cause the Valour of his Troops or the Conduct of their Leader upon all Encounters He marched into France took Nantes and burnt it with many Villages about it saying That to destroy the Wasps their Nests must be burnt In the Heat of this Action and by that of the Fires which he too near approached he fell into a Distemper which forced him to retire his Army and return to Rouen where he lay sick for some time with ill Symptoms that gave his Friends Apprehension and Hopes to his Enemies During the Expectation of this Event both sides were quiet by a sort of tacit and voluntary Truce between them The King of France talking of his Sickness and mocking at the Corpulency to which he was grown of late Years said King William was gone only to lay his great Belly at Rouen and that he doubted he must be at Charge to set up Lights at his uprising The King of England being told this Scoff sent King Philip Word That he was ready to sit up after his lying in and that when he was churched he would save him the Charge of setting up Lights and come himself and light a thousand Fires in France No Injuries are so sensible to Mankind in general as those of Scorn and no Quarrels pursued between Princes with so much Sharpness and Violence as those which arise from personal Animosities or private Passions to which they are subject like other Mortal Men. The King recovered gathers the greatest Forces he could raise both of English and Normans marches into the Isle of France with Fire and Spoil where-ever he came approaches within Sight of Paris where that King was retired There King William sent him word that he was up and abroad and would be glad to see him abroad too But the French King resolved to let this Fury pass and appeared not in the Field which was left to the Mercy and Ravage of his Enemies The King riding about to observe his Advantages and give his Orders and straining his Horse to leap a Ditch in his Way bruised the Bottom of his Belly against the Pommel of his Saddle with such a Weight and so much Pain as gave him a Relapse of his Illness so lately recovered forced him to march his Army back into Normandy and to go himself to Rouen Here his Bruise turned to a Rupture and his Sickness encreasing with the Anguish of his Wound gave too soon and true Apprehensions of his Danger Yet he languished for some time which he made use of to do many Acts of great Charity and give other Testimonies of Piety and Resignation to the Will of God as well as to dispose the Succession and Affairs of his State leaving by his Testament the Dutchy of Normandy to his eldest Son Robert the Kingdom of England to William his second Son and all his Treasures which were very great to Henry his third After this he ended his Life in the full Career of Fortune and Victory which attended him to his Grave through the long Course of more than threescore Years Reign For he began that in Normandy about ten Years old and continued it above fourty Years before his English Expedition after which he reigned above twenty Years in England and died in or about the seventy second Year of his Age and the Year of our Lord 1087. Several Writers show their ill Talent to this Prince in making particular Remarks how his Corps was immediately forsaken by all his Friends and Followers as soon as he expired how the Monks of an Abbey he had founded were thereby induced to come of Charity and take the care of his Body and his Burial which he had ordered to be at Caen
almost deserted by such numbers of Goths Vandals and Saxons as had issued out of them some Centuries before began under the Names of Danes and Normans to infest at first the Sea and at length the Lands of the Belgick Gallick and British Shores filling all where they came with Slaughters Spoils and Devastations The Normans first over-run the Belgick Provinces upon the Mouth of the Rhine and gave them new Names of Holland and Zealand to those parts adjacent to the Sea Afterwards they sailed with mighty Numbers into the Mouth of the Sean and with great fierceness subdued that Northern part of France which from them first received and ever since retained the Name of Normandy and became the State of a great Norman Duke and his Successors for several Generations In the mean time the Danes began their Inroads and furious Invasions upon the Coasts of England with mighty numbers of Ships full of fierce and barbarous People sometimes entring the Thames sometimes the Humber other times Coasting as far as Exeter Landing where-ever they found the Shores unguarded filling all with Ravage Slaughter Spoil and Devastations of the Country where they found any strong Opposition retiring to their Ships sailing home laden with Spoil and by such encouragements giving Life to new Expeditions the next Season of the Year The bravest Blood of the English had been exhausted in their own Civil Wars during the Contentions of the Heptarchy since those ended the rest were grown slothful with Peace and with Luxury softned with new Devotions of their Priests and their Monks with Pennances and Pilgrimages and great numbers running into Cloysters and grown as unequal a Match now for the Danes as the British had been for the Saxons before Yet this Century passed not without many various Successes between the two Nations many Victories and many Defeats on both sides so that twelve Battels are said to have been Fought between them in one Year The Danes divided their Force into several Camps removed them from one part of the Country to another as they were forced by necessity of Provisions or invited by hopes of new Spoils or the weakness and divisions of the English At length fortified Posts and Passages built Castles for defence of Borders one against the other which gave the beginning to those numerous Forts and Castles that were scattered over the whole Country and lasted so long as to remain many of them to this very Age. The English sometimes repulsed these Invasions sometimes purchased the Safety of their Provinces by great Sums of Money which occasioned great Exactions of their Kings upon the People and that great Discontents While the Danes encreasing still by new Supplies of Numbers and Force began to mingle among the Inhabitants of those parts they had subdued made Truces and Treaties and thereupon grew to live more peaceably under the Laws and Government of the English Kings Alfred to prevent the danger of New Invasions began to Build Ships for the Defence of his Coasts and Edgar a Prince of great Wisdom and Felicity in his Reign applying all his thoughts to the encrease and greatness of his Naval Forces as the true strength and safety of his Kingdom raised them to that height both of Numbers and Force and disposed them with that Order for the Guard of the Seas round the whole Island as proved not only sufficient to secure his own Coasts from any new Invasions but the Seas themselves from the Rovers and Spoilers of those Northern Nations who had so long infested them So that all Traders were glad to come under his Protection Which gave a rise to that Right so long claimed by the Crown of England to the Dominion of the Seas about the year 960. But these provisions for the safety of the Kingdom began to decline with the Life of Edgar and neglected in the succeeding Reigns made way for new Expeditions of the Danes who exacted new Tribute from the Kings and Spoils from the Subjects till Ethelred compounding with them for his own Safety and their peaceable living in England and fortifying himself by an Alliance with Richard Duke of Normandy laid a design for the general Massacre of the Danes spred abroad and living peaceably throughout the Realm which was carried on with that secrecy and concurrence of all the English that it was executed upon one day and the whole Nation of the Danes massacred in England about the year 1002. This cruel and perfidious Massacre of so many Thousands instead of ending the long miseries of this Kingdom from the Violences Invasions and Intrusions of the Danes made way for new and greater Calamities than before For Swane King of Denmark exasperated by the Slaughter of his Nation here and among them of his own Sister and animated by the Successes of so many private Expeditions soon after landed with great Forces formed several Camps of Danes in several parts of England filled all with Spoil and Slaughter forced Ethelred to fly for Relief into Normandy and though he returned again yet being a weak and cruel Prince and thereby ill beloved and ill obeyed by his Subjects he never recovered Strength enough to oppose the Forces and Numbers of the Danes to whom many of the English Nobles as well as Commoners had in his absence submitted Swane died before he could atchieve this Adventure but left his Son Canute in a Course of such prosperous Fortunes and the English so broken or divided that coming out of Denmark with new Forces in two hundred Ships he reduced Edmund Son of Ethelred first to a Division of the whole Kingdom between them and after his untimely Death was by the whole Nobility of the Realm acknowledged and received for King of England This fierce Prince cut off some of the Royal Line and forced others into Exile Reigned long and left the Crown for two Successions to his Danish Race who all swore to Govern the Realm by the Laws which had been established or rather digested by Edward the First and Edgar out of the Old Saxon Customs and Constitutions But Hardecaute last of the Danish Kings dying suddenly at a Feast in the year 1042. left the Race so hated by the Imposition and Exaction of several Tributes upon his People that Edward surnamed the Confessor and Grandson to Edgar coming out of Normandy where he had been long protected found an easie accession to the Crown by the general Concurrence both of Nobles and People and with great Applause restored the Saxon Race in the year 1043. Thus expired not only the Dominion but all Attempts or Invasions of the Danes in England which though continued and often renewed with mighty Numbers for above two hundred years yet left no change of Laws Customs Language or Religion nor other Traces of their Establishments here besides the many Castles they built and many Families they left behind them who after the Accession of Edward the Confessor to the Crown wholly submitting to his Government and
from the Coasts of Norway in two several Expeditions with mighty Numbers of a Brave but Barbarous People had about Two Hundred Years before first ravaged the Coasts of Holland and Flanders then entred the Mouth of the Sein subjected the Country by unresisted Arms then taking the City of Rouen Capital of that Province upon Composition and made Inroads from thence into the Isle of France and near Paris it self with such Fury and Success that the King of France embroiled then at home thought fit to tame these Lyons rather than longer to oppose them and threw them that noble and fruitful Morsel of Normandy to asswage their Hunger yielding it up wholly to their Leader Roul upon Conditions of his turning Christian and his holding that Dutchy from the Crown of France for him and his Successors After these Ceremonies were past of the Homages received in Normandy and given in France the old Duke Robert delivered his young Son himself into the Hands and Tutelage of the French King upon the Confidence of great Services he had formerly done him in Disputes about the Crown and immediately after these Transactions began his Voyage into Asia where he lived not long and left his Son to be the Founder of his own Fortunes rather than Heir of his Fathers which he found exposed to all sorts of Dangers from the tenderness of his Age the reproach of his Birth a suspected Guardian a disputed Title and a distracted State After the News of Duke Robert's Decease the Nobles of Normandy by him intrusted with the Government during his Sons Minority found themselves soon involved in many Difficulties by the open Factions of some Nobles who envied their Greatness and by the private Practices of others who being derived from some of the former Dukes resolved to set up their Pretences to the Succession but masqued their Designs at first and herded with the common Discontents against the present Administration The Governours faithful to the Trust reposed in them by the Father and the Fealty they had sworn to the Son esteemed the Presence of the young Prince necessary to support their Authority and his Title and thereupon prevailed with the King of France to send him into Normandy which he did accordingly with great Honour to himself and Kindness to the young Duke as well as Satisfaction to all his Loyal Subjects but to the Disappointment of those who pretended their Discontents rather against the Governours than the Succession No Prince ever came so early into the Cares and Thorns of a Crown nor felt them longer engaged in Difficulties and Toils in Hardships and Dangers His Life exposed to the Arms of Enemies the Plots of Assassins His Reign embroiled by the Revolts of his Subjects the Invasions of his Neighbours and his whole Life though very long spent in the necessary and dangerous Defence of his own Title and Dominion or in the ambitious Designs of acquiring greater Yet none ever surmounted all with more Constancy of Mind Prudence of Conduct and Felicity of Fortune By all which he seems born to have been rather a great Prince than a happy Man His first Contests and Dangers arose from the declared Competition of the Pretenders to the Succession of the Dutchy who favoured by the Defects of his Birth and grounding their Title upon their own legitimate Descent found so many Followers at home and such Assistance from some neighbouring Princes that agreeing together against the present Possessor though disputing among themselves upon their own Rights they raised great Forces and constrained the young Duke to appear not only at the Head of his Counsels but of his Armies too by that time he was full seventeen Years old These civil Wars continued long with many various Successes bloody Encounters defeating and recruiting of Troops surprising sacking besieging relieving of Towns and wasting of Countries till at last the Duke by his Vigilance Prudence Courage and Industry subdued totally not only the Forces but the Hearts of all his Competitors and Enemies at home and forced them to quit both Normandy and France and seek new Fortunes or at least Protection in Italy under the Banners and Service of those Northern Princes who had first by assisting their Friends and then pursuing their own fortunes made themselves Masters of Apulia Calabria and Sicily So great was the Prowess and Conduct of those brave Norman Adventurers that from Pruhans as the French called them because they could not stay at home but left their own Country to seek Room in foreign and distant Regions they became Possessors and Sovereigns in less than two hundred Years of one noble Dutchy in France a great Kingdom in the best Parts of Italy and a greater yet and more renowned in the British Isle and thereby exchanged the savage Woods and barren Mountains of Norway for three of the fruitfullest fairest and most pleasant Countries in the Western Parts of Europe and which had been observed both before and since to produce the bravest Bodies and Courages of any Provinces among their Neighbour Nations The Defeats and final Overthrow of Competitors at home gave Duke William no long Quiet for another appeared from abroad more dangerous than any of the former This was Martel Earl of Anjou that was not only a Prince of great Possessions but yet more formidable by the Alliance and Assistance of the King of France who jealous of the Norman Greatness thought it both wise and just to prevent its further Growth and abate a Neighbour's Power before it grew too high and perhaps out of his Reach by the Conduct Ambition and Fortune of such an aspiring Prince To this end and upon small Pretences which never fail a strong Invader he encouraged if not set on foot the Earl of Anjou's Pretensions to the Dutchy of Normandy gave him first his Countenance and Assistance to justfie his Claim and pursue it by Arms but by degrees engaged in an open and declared War against the Duke this he prosecuted with much Passion and Violence imploying in it not only all the Forces he could raise but his own Person to command them attended by many the chief Nobles of his Kingdom and many great Persons of his Allies Duke William lost nothing of his Temper or Courage upon the Approaches of so great a Storm but prepared first for his Defence till flesht with Success in many Encounters and trusting to the Bravery and Affections of his Army though much inferior to the French he brought the Quarrel to the Decision of two fierce Battels in two pitched Fields The first ended in an entire Victory on the Duke's side with the Slaughter of three Parts of his Enemies amounting to above thirty thousand Men This Loss however rather enraged than discouraged the King of France who gave himself or his Enemies no Quiet till he engaged the Normans in a second Battel with greater Forces and Rage on both sides but with the same Success the former had ended In this Field the
of their general Assemblies which began in this King 's or his Son's Time first to be stiled Parliaments according to the Norman Phrase whereas they had by the Saxons been called Gemoots and by their Latin Writers Common Councils or general Assemblies of the Kingdom though how composed is left uncertain and has raised much Argument and Dispute All these Considerations either moved or augmented at this Time a Design or Inclination of this King to change the whole Frame of the English Government to abolish their ancient Laws and Customs and introduce those of Normandy by which he thought he should be more absolute and too powerful to be again disturbed by any Insurrection at home or any Invasions from his Enemies abroad So soon as he had digested and began to discover this Resolution 't is not to be imagined what a universal Discontent and indeed Consternation it raised among all his English Subjects who under so great a King attended by his victorious Norman Forces reckoned upon no other Safety but from the Preservation of their ancient Laws whereof he had hitherto assured them Whereupon the whole People sad and aggrieved as well as the Nobles in an humble Manner but with universal Agreement tendred an earnest Petition to the King Beseeching him in Regard of his Oath made at the Coronation and by the Soul of St. Edward from whom he had the Crown and Kingdom under whose Laws they were born and bred that he would not change them and deliver them up to new and strange Laws which they understood not Upon this humble but earnest Application of the whole English Nation united in their Desires upon this Occasion the King before he resolved thought at least it was of Weight to deserve the best Deliberation and thereupon fell into serious Consultations upon it with his Council whom he found much divided in their Debates The Normans among them were for his executing with Vigor what he had determined for abolishing wholly the English Laws introducing the Norman and maintaining his Crown and Government by the same means he had gained them which was by Force and Arms. They were encouraged in this Opinion by presuming it agreed with the Kings Inclination and were confirmed by the pressing Arguments and Advices of his Brother Odon Bishop of Bayeux a Man of a violent Nature arbitrary Humour and Will who in the Time of the King's Absence and his being left Vice-gerent had exercised many Oppressions and cruel Exactions upon the People and had raised more Clamour and Hatred against the King's Government than any Councils or Actions of his own This ambitious Prelate aspiring at the Papacy upon the next Election and despairing to obtain it by any other Means than the Force of Money neglected or refrained no Ways of heaping up Treasure thought none so sure of encreasing his own as by advancing the King 's by an absolute Power over the Persons and Purses of his Subjects The English of the King's Council were of a different Opinion but being Parties in the Case had been little considered without the Support of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury who being born an Italian was impartial to English and Normans esteemed much by both and more by the King He was a Man of sound natural Sense and universal Goodness of general Knowledge known Virtue long Experience and approved Wisdom free and disinteressed and in all Councils considering the King more than himself and his true Service and Welfare of the Crown more than his Humour or his Inclination The King ever advised with him in all the weighty Affairs of his Reign allowed his Liberty and encouraged it knowing him to be not only wise and good but faithful to his Interests and affectionate to his Person Happy in the Choice or Fortune of such a Counsellor and more in the Disposition of hearing and weighing such Advises as were never so different from his own Opinions or Inclinations Nor is any thing more dangerous for a Prince than to consult only with Persons that he thinks are of his own Mind or will be so when they know it nor more pernicious in a Counsellor than to give only such Advices as he thinks most agreeable to him that asks or receives them Lanfranc upon this great and weighty Occasion represented to the King how much his Safety depended upon the general Satisfaction of his Subjects That of these the English were much the greater Part both in Strength and Numbers that no People could be easie under any Laws but such wherein they were born and bred That all Innovations were odious but none could be more so than this as appeared by so universal Agreement of the English in their Petition That the Humility and Calmness of it was more dangerous than if any thing had been done in hot Blood and the Refusal would be the more resented That the Laws and Constitutions of this Realm had been digested by the wisest Councils and confirmed by a long Succession of their Kings That under them the Saxons had been good and loyal Subjects and their Kings who ruled by these Laws never troubled with any Seditions or Insurrections of their People That besides Reason and Experience Religion was concerned in this Resolution since the King had already twice sworn solemnly to observe them so as a Change of them now would be taxed not only of Injustice but Impiety That nothing was of so much Moment to a Prince as Reputation and none more than that of being a Religious Observer of his Word and Promise but especially of his Oaths without which he could never be trusted by his Subjects or his Neighbors The King heard and weighed all their Reasons and by them formed his own Judgment which he ever trusted in the last Resort Upon mature Deliberation as the Case required he at length resolved not only to continue the Laws and Customs of the Realm but to give the People new and more evident Assurances of this resolution in pursuance whereof he granted and confirmed them by a publick and open Charter and thereby purchased the Hearts as well as Satisfaction of his English Subjects whereof he reaped the Fruits in his succeeding Troubles in Normandy and his Wars with France Yet he could not refrain showing the Kindness he retained for his own Country and Language introducing by Connivance or by Countenance several Norman Customs and endeavouring to introduce that Language to be general in the Kingdom To this End he caused many Schools to be set up for teaching that Tongue which was a Bastard French not well understood by the French themselves and not at all by the English He caused the Laws of the Kingdom which had been anciently written in Saxon and by Edward the Confessor published also in Latin to be now translated into Norman He ordered all Pleas in the several Courts to be made in the same Language and all Petitions presented the King and all Business of Court to be likewise in Norman This
from a mutual Respect they had for one anothers Forces and Dispositions They were indeed not much unequal in Numbers nor in the Bravery and Order of their Troops both Kings were valiant and wise having been trained up in Arms inured to Dangers and much embroiled at home in the Beginning of their Reigns They were now animated to a Battle by their own Courage as well as their Soldiers but yet both considered the Event in the Uncertainty and the Consequence the Loss of a Battle might prove the Loss of a Crown and the Fortune of one Day determine the Fate of a Kigdom and they knew very well that whoever fights a Battle with what Number and Forces what Provisions and Orders or Appearances soever of Success yet at the best runs a Venture and leaves much at the Mercy of Fortune from Accidents not to be foreseen by any Prudence or governed by any Conduct or Skill These Reflections began to dispose both Kings to the Thoughts of ending their Quarrel by a Peace rather than a Battle and though both had the same Inclination yt each of them was unwilling first to discover it least it might be interpreted to proceed from Apprehensions of Weakness or Fears and thereby dishearten their own Soldiers or encourage their Enemies The Scotch at length began the Overture which was received by King William with a Show of Indifference but with a concealed Joy and the more reasonable as having the greater Stake the less to win and the more to lose by the Issue of a Battle The first Parley was followed by a Treaty and this after some Debate by a Peace concluded as between equal Forces so upon equal Conditions each King to content himself with the ancient Bounds of their several Kingdoms whereof the Borders were agreed Neither to invade one anothers Dominions nor to assist the Enemies or receive and protect the Rebels of each other Prisoners in the last or this War to be on both sides released and Subjects who desired to return to be on both sides restored to their Country and Possessions Edgar the Principal or most appearing Cause of the War was included and provided for in this Treaty to return into England make his Submission to the King renounce any further Claim to the Crown and thereupon not only to be restored to his own Possessions with his Friends and Followers but to be provided of a large and honourable Maintenance from the King during his Life And thus this Storm which threatned both Kingdoms with such fatal Dangers and long Consequences was of a sudden blown over a general Calm restored in the whole Island of Britain and the two Kings returned to enjoy the Fruits of a Peace to which they had both contributed by their equal Temper and Prudence as well as by their equal Preparations for a War Soon after the King's Return Edgar repaired into England where he was very favourably received and all Conditions of the Treaty performed and ever after observed with great Faith and Sincereness on both Parts He had his Provisions and Revenues agreed by the Treaty fairly established but being desirous to go to the Wars of the Holy Land which was the common Humour of idle or devout Princes in that Age He was furnished by the King with great Sums of Money to prepare and maintain a noble Equipage for that Journey He there gained much Honour and Esteem after which returning into England he passed the rest of his whole Life in the Ease and Security of a large but private Fortune and perhaps happier than he might have done in the Contests and Dangers of Ambition however they might have succeeded A rare Example of Moderation in Prince Edgar and of Magnanimity as well as Justice and Clemency in this King and very different from several of his Successors who defamed their Reigns by the Death of innocent Princes for having only been born to just Rights of the Crown without any appearing Means or Attempts to pursue them or endanger the Possessors thereby staining their Memories with the Blots both of Cruelty and Fear For as Clemency is produced by Magnanimity and Fearlessness of Dangers so is Cruelty by Cowardise and Fear and argues not only a Depravedness of Nature but also a Meanness of Courage and Imbecillity of Mind for which reason it is both hated by all that are within its Reach and Danger and despised by all that are without The King upon his Return began again to apply himself to the Arts of Peace which consist chiefly in the preventing of future as those of War in the surmounting of present Dangers And as nothing raises the Power of a Crown so much as weak and private Conspiracies against it rashly undertaken by some few Discontents unsupported by any general Defections of the People faintly pursued and ending without Success so this Prince found his Throne and Authority more firmly established in all Appearance by the happy Issue of the two late Wars and the unfortunate Events of his revolted Nobles And now esteemed himself more at Liberty from those Regards of his English Subjects and their Laws which his unsettled State had made necessary upon his first Accession to the Crown He was provoked by the Rebellions of so many of the greatest English Nobles after their Fealty sworn to him He was perswaded of the general Disaffection of the rest and that the late Insurrections would have been found much deeper rooted and farther spread if they had been attended with any Success He thought the English Lords and Bishops had too great Dependance of their Tenants and Vassals upon them and had themselves too little upon the Prince Since they esteemed themselves neither bound to attend him in the Wars unless they pleased nor to furnish the Expences unless by their own Consent in their general Assemblies nor was he satisfied to have them judge of his Necessities whom he thought likeliest to encrease them or at least to desire them He believed the English in general would as long as they retained the Saxon Laws and Forms of Government ever be affected to the Race of their Saxon Kings And for this Reason he was thought to have encouraged the Voyage of Edgar for the Holy Land by so large Supplies of Treasure under Pretence of that Prince's Honour but from true Intentions of his own Safety Besides he found his Treasures exhausted by the great Charges of his two last Expeditions and the just Rewards he had promised both his Normans and those of the English who had well and faithfully served in them Though he had once or twice for 't is left in doubt levied the Tax of Dane-gelt upon the Threats of a Danish Invasion and by an ancient Prerogative of the Saxon Kings pretended or exercised upon that Occasion yet he found it was not raised without great Murmur and Reluctancy of the People as well as the Nobles who pretended to ancient Liberties of paying no Taxes imposed without the Consent